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Another Week in Japan: Hardware and software numbers 4/14-4/20
Something caused a Phoenix Wright sales revival, and we suspect it was the Gyakuten Meets Orchestra concert (which was also a Gyakuten Kenji hype event). Both the first and second Gyakuten Saiban games for the DS ended up in the top thirty this week.Newcomer We're Fossil Diggers (a second-party effort by RED Entertainment that actually sounds really fun, at least to the dinosaur lovers in us) deserves all the glory, though. Debuting at third place, this unique piece of software did rather well for itself in its first week.Besides the same old games that have been showing up in the charts for the past few weeks, the other notable is Square-Enix's dull-sounding bookkeeping game. It seems like a rather niche title to end up in the top thirty, but who knows -- maybe a lot of Japanese folks are getting ready to take the Level 3 Bookkeeping exam. Or, maybe they just can't resist a game by the beloved Squeenix.To see all the placings and numbers for yourselves, just click on past the break.
Ace Attorney orchestra awesomeness meets Gyakuten Kenji trailer
The Ace Attorney series is dear to our hearts, so when any information crosses the intertubes regarding Capcom's lawyering games, we foam at the mouth like rabid raccoons. Today's tidings regard both the Gyakuten Meets Orchestra concert, which took place in Tokyo, and the upcoming spin-off title starring Miles Edgeworth. As much as we love Gyakuten Saiban and its music, we obviously weren't able to able to drag ourselves to Japan for what we're sure was an awesome concert. From what we understand, though, the CDs that you see so deliciously stacked in the video above will be made available for purchase on July 16th. Do want. Also in the video (around the 4:00 minute mark) is a trailer for Edgeworth's game, called Gyakuten Kenji in case you haven't been keeping up (for shame!). The trailer is mostly just moving versions of screens we've already seen, but it also features a new character that will be showing up Check after the break to see some promotional photos for Gyakuten Kenji, some artwork from the event (want!), and some Gyakuten Saiban swag, including an orchestra-themed tumbler (want want!) and even Snackoos (want want want!). %Gallery-20451%
Rumor: Next Ace Attorney sequel is 'Perfect Prosecutor' featuring Edgeworth
It's the contention of a couple of us around the office that Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney's Miles Edgeworth is one of the best video game characters ever. We've always dreamed of a game featuring just him, but like our imaginary Lost spin-off that featured Christian Shepard trekking around the globe, hiring Mexican girls and drinking, we figured it was never going to happen. So imagine our shock when we saw these scans from an upcoming issue of Famitsu.That, friends, is reportedly Gyakuten Saiban: Perfect Prosecutor, if the Weekly Game Journal is to be believed. The site also says you'll play as Edgey, "searching for overlooked evidence and inconsistencies at the crime scene." Also, expect some new methods of searching and deduction. ... Oh, and a guaranteed purchase from us, you can expect that too.[Thanks, Beau]
Rumor: Legend of Zelda manga coming stateside
Usually, we don't often partake in "the mangas." Sometimes you have to read them backwards, which makes our heads hurt, and frankly, we don't think our black jeans are comically baggy enough to pull the whole "manga reader" look off. That said, we think we'll be forced to make an exception for a Legend of Zelda manga that's reportedly coming stateside.In an effort to make no more than one manga-related post per month, we also wanted to let you know that GoNintendo got its hands on the cover for the Phoenix Wright manga headed our way. It's totally uninspiring, save for the presence of Godot, the coolest prosecutor since Sam Waterston. ... Crap, are we going to have to buy two mangas? We're going to have to go get our jeans let out.
Capcom Europe objects to sequential order
This thread on Capcom Europe's forums is from earlier in the month, but the info contained within is still worth noting. There's still no European release date for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations, but a forum administrator has confirmed that it will be out after the May 9th release of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney.As "Chompman" explains, "There's no spoilers in Apollo Justice that would stop you enjoying Trials and Tribulations if you played it afterwards though." Well, that makes it okay. European gamers are certainly used to later game releases by now, but out of sequence? That's a new and special way to irritate a fanbase.Oh, by the way, the U.S. version of Trials and Tribulations is $18.99 at Amazon. [Via NeoGAF]
Phoenix Wright: Ace Strategic Planner
As consumers, we hardly look into the business side of gaming. That doesn't mean we don't take a look at stocks and sales numbers, because we like to play the part of video game analyst at times. Yet, we usually don't think about the behind-the-scenes decisions that publishers have to make. When we want games, we just want them, publishers be damned. Games like Electroplankton bother us because they're so hard to find, and even when Electroplankton was available way back when, it was only available online and at the Nintendo World Store. We never stopped to think that maybe retailers refused to put the game on their shelves. (Note: We're not saying that this was the case with Electroplankton, only that it may have factored into Nintendo's decision).MTV Multiplayer's interview with Christian Svensson, the Senior Director of Strategic Planning & Research for Capcom, brings some of these issues to light. Svensson talks a lot about the first Phoenix Wright game specifically, and how it was difficult to convince retailers to stock the title despite fan interest. There are also many other issues that come into play, like first week sales and production speeds. If companies can't provide retailers with games almost immediately after orders are placed, stores will just move on to the next hot title on the market. This makes proper estimates for DS games especially important, since they take about two months to manufacture. No pressure.The article is definitely worth a read, and the next time you find yourself irritated because so-and-so game is impossible to find, you might be a little less quick to yell out objections.
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for Even Less
We've featured sale prices for the second entry in the Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney series before, but of all the markdowns, this is among the marked-downiest (on a new copy, anyway). For only $10.99, you can pick up one of the best games on the DS about lawyers solving murder cases with the help of teenagers who can summon the dead. Even if you haven't bought the first game yet, you should get this one now, because this is the cheapest you'll see it ... until Amazon marks it down again! If you do already have the first game but stopped there for whatever reason, it's a good time to get back into it, because you can also get the third game, Trials and Tribulations, for a nice $18.99.
DS Daily: A lesson learned
While playing Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, we learned a neat little fact about cards. Apparently, a deck of cards represents a calendar year -- there are four suits because there are four seasons in a year, and there are fifty-two cards because there are fifty-two weeks.Also, if you assign each card a numeric value from one to thirteen (with an ace equaling one, a king equaling thirteen), they will add up to 364. That's why there are two jokers: One makes the year complete, since a year has 365 days, and the other is there because there's an extra day during leap years.Are there any cool little facts you've learned from games that you've played? Maybe even something less trivial than the card fact above? Share them with us. This way, you'll have some ammo when people scold you about not learning anything from video games.
SecondSpin sale offers extra cheap prices for used games
Starting today until March 16th, preowned media retailer SecondSpin is offering customers free shipping and 20% off its used items. Unlike GameStop and Electronics Boutique, SecondSpin sells every game with the manual and box, so you won't have to worry about receiving an incomplete package. All you need to do to take advantage of the deal is use this coupon code: TWENTY314. SecondSpin has too many available Nintendo DS and GBA titles (450+) for us to list, but we've put together a short tally of games that you might want to pick up. Nintendo DS: Custom Robo Arena - $13.79 $11.03 Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney: Justice for All - $12.99 $10.39 Scurge: Hive - $10.39 $8.39 Spectrobes - $14.99 $11.99 The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass - $26.99 $21.59 True Swing Golf - $9.99 $7.99 GBA deals: Final Fantasy IV Advance and V Advance - $14.99 $11.99 Gunstar Super Heroes - $7.99 $6.39 TMNT - $14.99 $11.99 If you don't see anything you're interested in, SecondSpin updates its inventory every day, so check back again tomorrow! [Via CAG]
Phoenix Wright case generator: choose your own OBJECTION!
To promote the release of the first three Gyakuten Saiban games on PC in episodic format, Capcom has released an Ace Attorney case creator. It's all in Japanese, but the editor is self-evident enough; you can choose characters, locations, music, and graphical effects for each scene; you can make each character perform three actions per scene, and you can write their text. The text is severely limited, since the editor is designed for strings of kanji, which of course means fewer characters. You could just use more scenes to write more text, though.Getting in is somewhat more difficult, since you need to sign up with Daletto. Luckily, there's a tutorial for navigating the Japanese signup page on Court Records. It's totally worth the trouble to be able to create near-instant Phoenix Wright animations. We only wish this had come out a couple of months ago. Check after the break for our first brief dalliance with Tsukurou! Gyakuten Saiban (Let's Create! Gyakuten Saiban).
Games that shouldn't be MMOs
Here's a corollary post to an earlier story. Our cousin site, Cinematical, has brought teh funneh with a post about which board games would make awful movies. In that spirit, we now present to you a list of games that would make terrible MMOs, in no particular order.Please note that these are merely our particular opinions, and we're not saying that a cleverer-than-thou developer couldn't make a great MMO out of these games ... but for reasons we'll state here, it's highly unlikely. Then again, sometimes the best-sounding ideas turn out some awful games themselves (*cough* Fury *cough*), so it all evens out. Excelsior!
The DS Life: First-person gaming
The DS Life is a weekly feature in which we scour the known world for narrative images of Nintendo's handhelds and handheld gamers. If you have a photo and a story to match it with, send both to thedslife at dsfanboy dot com.We're breaking away from our usual routine this week -- instead of fawning over touching scenes of handheld gamers, we'll look through ten pictures taken from the gamers's point of view. These photographs can reveal a lot about the shutterbugs who took them! You know, besides what game they were playing at the time.
Japan gets cheap Phoenix Wright
Our initial reaction to hearing that Capcom was slashing the price of the Gyakuten Saiban series in Japan can be summed up by the picture to the right. It was only after we had sulked for a few minutes that we remembered how every one of those games comes in both Japanese and perfect English!In other words, if you're thinking of picking up one of the four Phoenix Wright titles in the near future, then we strongly advise you to, well, hold it! From April 17th, the games will become part of Capcom's new budget lineup, "NEW Best Price! 2000," and cost a piffling ¥2,100 (just under $20) after tax.See also: 2008's Biggest Blips -- Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney[Via NeoGAF]
GDC08: The eight best stories in gaming
Tuesday afternoon four well-known games industry writers and designers got together to discuss the best storytelling gaming has to offer in a panel entitled "Stories Best Played: Deconstructing the Best Interactive Storytelling." Each of the authors brought a pair of games that they viewed as some of the narratively strongest yet made. Prior to the panel all four men played the ten titles, and came prepared to talk about the strengths and merits of each. Panelists Richard Rouse (Paranoid Productions), Steve Meretzky (Blue Fang), Marc Laidlaw (Valve Software), and Ken Rolston (Big Huge Games) offered up, in essence, a 'top eight' list for gamers looking to get more from exposition than explosions. Read on for views from a panel of expert opinions on the likes of Loom, BioShock, Phoenix Wright and the legendary Planescape: Torment.
Achtung, baby! Apollo Justice gets dated for Europe
While we're sure many English-speaking, Ace Attorney-loving Europeans arranged to have the game imported already, the rest of you will be glad to know that Apollo Justice has been given a release date.Europe can expect the game on May 9th, which is tantalizingly far away for fans, but we've seen worse than a three month delay. Take Trials and Tribulations for example -- where is that game?Nintendo of Europe still doesn't list an official date for Phoenix Wright's third foray in the courtroom, and we haven't heard anything from Capcom, but the unofficial date of March 21st has popped up on some sites like GameSpot UK. While a March date is unlikely (as we probably would have heard something concrete by this point), let's hope it's correct so that non-importing Europeans can play their games in order.See also: 2008's Biggest Blips -- Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney%Gallery-10043%[Via GoNintendo]
DS Daily: Music to your ears
Recent news that the Tokyo Philharmonic is to belt out a selection of tunes from the Ace Attorney series had some of us fingering our passports and checking April flights to Japan.It also resulted in us taking some time to gaze into the middle distance, and reminisce about some of our favorite music from DS games. Ouendan and the Castlevania games are obvious choices, while Advance Wars: Day of Ruin is a more current favorite, but what about you, readers?See also: 2008's Biggest Blips - Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
Minae Matsukawa: Ace Producer blogs
Minae Matsukawa, Ace Attorney series producer, has started a developer blog on the official Ace Attorney website. In the first entry, she discusses the early planning of the U.S. version (and therefore the DS port in general) of the first game, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. According to Matsukawa, the idea to yell into the microphone came from American Capcom staffers who thought it was an obvious must-have. "'So, do we get to do some yelling?' an American staff member asked me. 'E-excuse me?'"The Japanese staff weren't keen on the idea of adding a bunch of unnecessary features, but creator/writer Shu Takumi recognized the importance of making the American audience happy. The rest, as they say, is an optional feature in a video game.Speaking of American Ace Attorney staff, the post mentions an interesting bit of trivia that we've been looking for an excuse to share. Ben Judd, who was part of the localization team, provided the American voice of Phoenix Wright. He's now the producer on the new Bionic Commando games.
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Deals and Dropped Prices
We'd be hard-pressed to present a better deal on a DS game than the newly price-dropped Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations. Except for, you know, those deals on the previous games. But those don't really supercede this deal, because you really need the whole series. Seriously, if you can read (which you can, we are absolutely certain), you should pick up Capcom's hilarious series of visual-novel style adventure games.The new $20 price point for Trials and Tribulations seems to be a universal price drop, reflected at Best Buy and GameStop so far. Amazon even has the game for an ultra-low $19.79, saving you twenty crucial cents.
Meet Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney right here, right now
Though you'll be assuming the role of attor-n00b Apollo Justice in Capcom's fourth venture into the comical court, it's still your job to help the chronically unprepared Phoenix Wright out of a bind in the opening case. If you've been hesitant to ease yourself into this pun-infested round of laughable legalese, you'll be pleased to find a playable trial version of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney embedded after the break (you'll find the code at the official site). Once you've gotten acquainted with the new cast in this first installment built specifically for the DS, you can look forward to bailing the game out of stores on February 19th.
Phoenix Wright manga judged fit for Western release
Further demonstrating the insane success of our favorite lawyer adventure game series, Del Rey Manga, publisher of Avril Lavigne's Make 5 Wishes, will be translating the official Gyakuten Saiban manga and releasing it in the U.S. The first volume of Phoenix Wright is set to be released on August 26th, at a retail price of $13.95. Amazon, of course, is preselling it for $2 less.The manga features all the familiar Phoenix Wright characters you know, love, and object to, along with new characters, in completely new cases. With Apollo Justice on the way next month, we're glad to have a line on some new content, even if it's somewhat less interactive than the games.[Thanks, Eric Flatness!]
